Re: The ONE and ONLY *OFFICIAL* STAR WARS (Original Trilogy) DVD REVIEW THREAD!
I have had occasion to check out these OOT discs.
Definitely just a small step up picture-wise from the old DC discs, which looked just sort of okay upscaled, compared with the SE laserdiscs, which themselves looked comparable to a well-mastered nonanamorphic DVD. Those were nice LD transfers! Much less noisy, less aliasing (when coupled with a good line doubler), just a cleaner video image for whatever processors you had on-hand to deal with. Amazing how a few years helped that technology! And yes, we had physically cleaned up prints for the 97 SE too (though we are to believe every scrap of cleaned up print for all the films was cut into the SE version, rather than preserved and some bits were beyond repair, necessitating newly created or re-created shots, at least for Star Wars).
I've read the contrast has been enhanced on these transfers, but I'm not too sure based on what I saw. May just comes down to getting a more accurate output thanks to DVD and better connections, as it is with the color which is quite accurate compared to the 2004 SEs AND the 97 SEs (which aren't nearly as messed up) and much tighter (as opposed to bleeding and smearing) than most of us could get from a laserdisc.
Oddly, Star Wars looks best to me in the contrast department, although it's clear a lot of the (too bright) desert shots have benefited from re-grading in newer incarnations (SW is the only one of the 2004 discs that still looks way too dark to me most of the time, Jedi may just be darker than the blown out releases that came before it, Empire seems to have always had the most contrast). The OOT discs for ESB and ROTJ still looked blown out to me, just as the old LD and VHS releases did. Chances are Star Wars has a bit too much contrast too, but since I wasn't around when it hit theaters I can't tell you for sure, but I'm guessing it's slightly overbright, but preferable to the candle-lit 2004 version.
I've noticed a lot of comments about a lot of visible film grain. Granted, there are a lot of grainy shots in the OOT, many times due to all the optical compositing and multigenerational prints, but that's to be expected without the kind of restoration done by Lowry for the 2004s (which unfortunately brought some ill side effects as well since FX weren't touched up afterwards. Doh!).
Unfortunately, I think a lof of what people are describing, at least what is consistent throughout and not on a shot-to-shot basis, is actually video noise, despite the information-robbing noise reduction applied. If memory serves, the Faces discs (or maybe just Star Wars) had even more noise reduction added, making the DC even more valued despite them being the same transfers since the right setup could extract a bit more detail. Even in shots without optical effects, there's a lot of noise in the image, especially on Star Wars, very evident in the film's opening sequence or any place smoke or the like appears. In shots without optics involved I really doubt this transfer is good enough for us to be seeing as much real film grain as people think there is. This is the kind of noise I saw from the output of many a VCR, back in the day until I finally found a made-in-Japan Panasonic that satisfied the burgeoning videophile within me.
Oh, and there was noticeable telecline jitter or waver, whatever you want to call it, most notable during the titles. Your brain can tune it out though (or focus in on it and drive you crazy!).
Soundwise, not horrible. But harsher than the LDs by far. But I'm sure it's comparable to the sound of the VHS tapes most of us remember, but without the occasional wow from the tape wrinkles! Ahh, good times.
Soo, your mileage may vary, but if these transfers are still pumped up in the contrast department just like the old VHS and laser releases were, we still haven't really seen the OOT as it was meant to be seen, but as it was meant to be seen on home video 13 years ago.
But maybe those who say the contrast has been adjusted saw them on a more accurate setup contrast-wise than what I saw them on. I can't stand when I go to other people's houses and the brightness is way up. I know space didn't look all that black either...until you put a bright ship or planet next to it.
EDIT: I got a new iScan on eBay and checked out the discs upscaled on my system, properly set up with AVIA. I stand by that Star Wars actually looks the best. Empire and Jedi still look like the brightness is one or two notches too high. Space seems blackest in Star Wars, a bit brownish in Empire, bit bluish in Jedi. The sequels also look more processed than Star Wars to my eyes. The iScan does a pretty good job handling most of the jaggies when the image is relatively clean. What's interesting, is I've always been most happy with the 2004 SE transfer of ESB compared with the other films, incuding the color, and that film has the oddest color palette of the originals. It's the only original that I question if it's meant to look the way it does. Almost makes me wonder if someone re-timed ESB for the 2004s and kept all those settings for Star Wars and ROTJ.
Anyone else ever notice how the crawl elements seem to be dirty on ESB? I always noticed on laserdisc how the crawl looked really bad compared to the other films, like there's dust between the titles and space. I kind of think the whole ESB transfer may be a bit lackluster, even compared to the other two films. I have a feeling the most care was taken with Star Wars back in 1993.
Regardless, ESB couldn't be an easy film to color-correct based on what I see in the original version, but it does have a lot of rather unique lighting situations (people lit only by computer consoles, command bridges, and so forth), so the odd colors in the unaltered version may be intentional. Watching scenes like the lightsaber battles lets you see what Lowry did when they adjusted the brightness and contrast; in the occasional shot where there's no saber effect, you can go "there!" and that's what they based the settings on, a nice clean image (without multiple generations) and solid blacks and contrast. Then they re-graded all the shots that matched that lighting situation and removed the unwanted grain, which gave a nice image, save for the saber effects. And this same situation applies to most of the FX shots in the films. There indeed were always inconsistencies in the saber colors, but with the brighter images it wasn't nearly as noticeable, since we never got dark magenta or deep blue, with virtually no white from the sabers before. The sabers were mostly just bright, so you couldn't make out the colors as well.
The saber cross looks fine on the originals, but indeed the whole image is a bit blown out. Luke's saber is WAY blown out for most of ROTJ. Is it true another effects company did all the green saber effects OVER the blue saber that had been done originally? If so, it would explain why so many of the shots in Jedi are so poor quality-wise. An additional generation, and why Luke has the "biggest, fattest saber of them all."
